


How to Listen

by Nina (ninamazing), ninamazing



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/Nina, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Her breathing is as steady as ever, the one-two rise and fall that has become the metronome of his existence.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Listen

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 2x08. "Let's Get It On" is kiiiiind of a genius song. ♥

"Did you look me up?" Annie asks him once. It's after dinner, and she's lounging next to him on the couch, staring at the fire. "In 2006? Did I exist?"

He should have been prepared for this question; he knows he should have.

"No," he says finally. He looks at her, but she gives nothing away. "There ... there wasn't time."

The quirk of her smile is distorted behind the glass of red wine in her fingers.

"Funny," she says, "coming from a time traveller."

+

He moves in with her. She jokes that one more day in that grotty flat would do him in, anyway, but Sam's not stupid; he buys her a vase of resplendent flowers and takes over kitchen duty straightaway.

There are no more entreaties of mysterious origin, now, or signs that are invisible to everyone but him; 1974 is almost 1975, and it's quieter than ever. The static on the television is just static, and Annie looks at him with pain in her eyes every time he fiddles with a dial. He always passes her the remote; he stops mentioning Simon Cowell or the war in Iraq; and the one time they are invited to a rooftop party Annie stares at him hard, grabs his hand, and turns it down. He reminds himself of his mother's eyes, of the emptiness in the sounds of mobiles and alarms — he remembers his promise. This is a choice he made. This time, it's a choice.

When most people move on they have rituals — they throw away everything they once owned, dust off the relics of an old life. Sam has nothing to toss; there is nothing here that comes from 2006 except his body.

He still has nightmares.

He finds himself so often in that empty lot, before the underpass — where he first saw his DI badge in 1973. The sheen of the sky behind the clouds is always a little too bright.

"You'll never find me now," dream-Annie says, holding a gun, and Sam just stares up the barrel of it. She towers over him. It's eerie, the way the grooves in the chamber rotate away from him, a spinning kaleidoscope like the ones surrounding her pupils. _I'm dreaming_, he tries to remind himself, like they talked about. _This is a dream, all of it._

"You'll need them. The seats with the clearest view," she mutters, or maybe it's him, but he doesn't know what he's saying or why. She knows, like always, but doesn't tell him; never tells him. She likes it when he's clever enough to figure it all out on his own.

_Just give me this one, Annie. Just this one._

She shoots, and the dream ends, until next time.

_You'll never find me now, Sam._

+

He watches the sun dapple her hair, light shifting in the window as a tree branch waves back and forth outside. Her breathing is as steady as ever, the one-two rise and fall that has become the metronome of his existence.

"Annie," he whispers, half-hoping she won't wake.

She rolls over, squinting in the sunlight. "What?" She brushes the hair from her face, and looks at him, and knows. "Another one?"

He nods.

She sighs and pulls him in close, threading her fingers through the crop of his hair. Annie smells, in the morning, like skin and sweat and sleep, like every magic kiss of the night past. He breathes it again, savoring it, before she scrubs it all off in favor of lemon and linen and they go to work. Her hand is gentle, scratching the back of his head.

"Oh, Sammy," she says. "What am I going to do with you?"

As an answer he shifts up slightly and kisses her neck, sucking softly in a curve above her collarbone until she stops him, laughing, and goes to make tea.

+

This close to Christmas there's a wreath on the door of the Railway Arms, and inside Nelson's pouring half-priced pints for everyone from CID. He's shivering from the cold as they step in, but Annie's laughing, and she turns to wrap her scarf around his neck and kiss him.

"Better?" she asks. Behind the bar, Nelson snickers.

"It looked better on you," the bartender tells her, and she fake-shushes him as Sam hangs up the coats.

"He gets terribly self-conscious," she says, eyes wide. "You really do have to keep quiet about it."

They cackle.

"When you two have had your fun," Sam says, "I'll take one for each of us. And for the guv, of course," he adds as Gene saunters over.

"Yes, thank you, Gladys," Gene drawls, slinging an arm around each of their shoulders. "Not _nearly_ drunk enough."

Nelson pushes three pints across the bar and is off, headed for a table of rowdy constables.

"Just thinking," Gene says between two massive gulps, "you two aren't having it quick and dirty at the office, are you? Nobody's knickers come off in CID unless I know about it first."

"Please stop talking," says Sam.

"Chris brought a decent bird," Gene goes on, as if he hasn't heard, and finishes his pint. "That reminds me — Oy! Chris!" he yells to a corner table. "Get the music!"

Chris leans over to plant a smooch on his young date, and goes to the jukebox as Gene staggers over, plopping himself down next to Ray.

"Oh boy," says Sam, watching Chris's date rise and adjust her dress. "I think we're going to have to dance."

Annie takes his arm. "Good thing I wore my dress."

He smiles at her as Chris and the girl join hands, and two other couples stand up; the music is fast and cheery and they all dance. The dress is red, of course; Annie's wearing red, and the universe is moving in slow motion again. He tries not to notice it so much, but it's there in the way her eyelashes stand out against her wind-chilled cheeks; it's there in her lips, her cleavage, the smooth lines of her arms. She's crimson; a blur; an image burned at the back of his eyes from childhood.

"Sam," she says.

"You're alive," she says, and he blinks and tries to focus on her.

"You're here," she says, and she's looking close into his eyes and smiling.

"Why can't you just enjoy that?" she says, and he doesn't know, he doesn't know, he doesn't know.

"I've been really trying, baby," someone wails, and it takes Sam a moment to recognize Marvin Gaye. "Trying to hold back this feeling, for so long."

"And if you feel," he whispers to Annie, in time with the Motown legend, "like I feel, baby, come on. Oh, come on." She smiles. She hears it too. It's just the song that's playing from the jukebox in the bar, their first Christmas together.

He sways with her, slowly, and it's hard to remember a time when his palms would have felt awkward at the small of her back, or when she wouldn't have known where at his chest to rest her head. Sam feels like he's never really listened to this song, or understood, truly, how much bloody sense it makes. _Since we got to be, let's live. I love you._ He smiles into Annie's hair, and catches a whiff of that morning smell. She sighs against him, and he feels the pressure of the extra air in her lungs, for a moment, as she inhales.

"I didn't have to," Sam whispers, and his voice skates across the top of her ear.

She leans back, gazes at him. "What?"

"I didn't need to look you up," he says, and places his palm over her heart. His hand is pale against that red dress, and her heart beats, and she breathes. "I know you exist."

"Don't you know," Marvin croons, "how sweet and wonderful life can be?"

In the corner, Gene knocks over a table, and when Ray attempts to right him a commotion starts.

Annie places her hand over Sam's, and when she looks up her eyes are shining.

"Let's go home," she says.


End file.
